Inspiration for a character can come from the strangest places.
Faye’s birth story started when I was watching an episode of Glee with my wife, who loves anything remotely musical. For those of you who are not part of the ‘Gleek‘, it is the story of several American high school kids who join a glee club (acting, singing, and dancing). The themes are fairly traditional: teenagers battling with issues of identity, belonging, direction, drugs and alcoholism, pregnancy, and pretty much every other issue facing contemporary young adults. It’s very cutesy with lots of singing; there’s a little depth, but nothing you have to strain for, and the tendency is for most things to work out in the end—nice and fluffy end-of-day TV; except for the character of Sue Sylvester.

Sue is a gym teacher and head of the Cheerios—the school’s cheerleading squad. She hates everyone and everything, but especially anything to do with the creative arts. She has no time for political correctness and spends most of each episode firing off offensive waspish quips with no regard for others’ feelings:

Her dark and biting humour was such a counterpoint to the rest of the show it made her character stand out, and I wondered if I could write that type of satire. First, I needed a character, and it took a few days for my thoughts to come together. I needed a name, and thought of a pun on failing: “Faye Ling”. With her name decided, she was obviously oriental, and it seemed easiest to make her a writer. She needed something to be angry / sarcastic about—I’ve read several opinionated blog posts on writing and that gave me a topic. For a few days I wasn’t sure how to present it, or what to write, but then I remembered reading other writer’s blog posts where characters had been interviewed as real people. I didn’t want to duplicate what they had done and so I had Faye write her own blog post. I wanted to set myself a writing challenge—to see if I could ‘act’ a character like Faye on the page. I think / hope that Faye found a unique voice in the process.

I could have played it straight and told everyone what I was doing in the introduction, but as Faye’s post was intended to be humorous I thought it would be more fun to leave a trail of clues I hoped readers would pick up on and be drawn into the joke. They could then take part, if they wanted to, in the comment section.

The clues were her name, her cartoon avatar; the exaggerated tone and style of the piece, as well as some of the over the top things she / I was writing as her. I intended that the editorial comments from me, and the seeming tension and ‘blackmail’ occurring between Faye and I would clue people in and add to the humour of the piece. (I hope I would never be such a wuss in real life as to let anyone walk over me like that). I was also banking on anyone who had been reading my blog for a while would know that I often try novel things with a comic twist.

Finally I invented a Twitter ID: @fayelingwriter – again a pun and a copy of my own Twitter ID @tjameswriter. For those that followed her twitter link, her ID message is not something anyone would normally have:

“I’m not nice. I don’t like people, so if you want me to follow you, what’s in it for me?”

The ‘conversation’ between the two ID’s was just an excuse for more silliness.

By the time I wrote last week’s post Faye Ling had become a living character inside my head, and now it’s easy to imagine conversations between us—it really does feel as though she has taken on a life of her own. I’ve read other author accounts of how their characters come alive, and Cassie, the main character in My Mirror Self, and I, certainly did, but not in the same way that Faye has. I can only put this down to context—Cassie came alive, but as a character in a story, but Faye took on a life in the real world as that was the context in which we interacted. So, if you really want your characters to feel like people, and react and speak in their own way, you can always try taking them out of context, and setting up a scenario where you can pull up a cosy chair, grab a coffee and get to know each other really well. You may be surprised by what you find out. You may also find that some of them aren’t fully under your control—but I wouldn’t use that as your defence plea when the men in white coats cart you in front of the judge.

So, what did you think? Did Faye come alive for you as a character? Was any of it funny? Did you hate it, her, or me? Have you tried doing something similar for yourself, and if so, how did it work out? I’d love to know what you think. (If you wish to comment privately, please use the “Contact Info” tab at http://tjames.org to get in touch via email, and I’ll get back to you).

12 Comments

I thought the first interview exchange was very funny…a match made in heaven But last week’s post tipped me off that something was funny and not haha kind of funny. I had a feeling that Faye wasn’t real. So, no, I’m not surprised.

To be honest, I thought that everyone was going to catch on to Faye being fictional after she was introduced for her first blog post – the comments after that gave me no indication to think otherwise. I expected people’s responses to the last ‘editing’ post to be along the lines of,

“Yeah, yeah TJ – we’ve got you sussed,”

and then go on to comment about their experiences of editing and critiquing. I only put that post up because as I was re-reading and editing the piece I’d written as Faye, I found her voice in my head responding to the changes I was making. Mostly it was her adamant refusals to change anything, and unrepentant and arrogant attitude toward her readers. That got me to thinking how I would handle someone with such a difficult personality in real life, and so I put up the post.

I honestly thought that the references to Faye’s fictional insistent emails and the non-existent paper-maze would just keep the theme going from her first post, and hopefully raise a reader’s knowing smile – In reality I’d never touch anything like that, or divulge email contents on my blog. I was surprised when I was getting advice on how to handle Faye, and it took me a while to realise that one or two were serious, and weren’t simply continuing the joke in their own way.

Angie, you know me quite well so I’m not surprised you had me pegged from early on.To anyone else reading this: it was not my intention to dupe or mislead you – I assumed I was being obvious enough to be spotted coming from a mile away – but if you were in anyway offended by my attempt at humour, then you have my apologies.

I love it… In fact once the kids are in bed tomorrow night (yeah yeah they are sleeping tonight but, I have heaps of stuff to do… and some glee to watch!!) I’m going to read your posts again..
very clever, and I love the way you’ve used technology to bring your character to life!
5 gold stars!

Thanks Tamara – I hoped it would be entertaining to read. I’ve done a draft of a writer’s guide, written in Faye’s inimitable style. What I don’t know is, if anyone would want to read 20K of Faye Ling?

Hi Gareth – Faye assures me that she gained much pleasure from toying with your affections.

The Twitter conversation was another one of the bread crumbs left in my little trail of deceit and misdirection. I cannot rig Google searches, yet, but having purchased a Hack-o-Tron 3000 I am optimistic I can move Faye to the top of their rankings very shortly. Despite not actually being alive, she still yearns for the greatness and recognition she considers her due.

I felt the writing was a persona – but believed it was a persona for a friend, and not for TJ. I assumed “Faye Ling” was just a pen name the friend had taken due to fandom for apparently a video game character.

And to be truthful, there are people in writing and poetry communities who are…a bit ‘out of the mainstream’ – very colorful and unique personalities, and completely unapologetic and not embarrassed to project an image they want.

I don’t think there can be any doubt that on the internet anyone with imagination can be whoever they want – it’s one of the freedoms and the risks of the medium. There’s absolutely no reason Faye’s persona (I think she would prefer ‘Personality’) had to be one of mine. You have definitely ingratiated yourself with her by calling her, “… very colorful and unique…”, although she asserts that such compliments are her right, and so she refuses to thank you. Unapologetic is right on the money…

I didn’t know it was a running joke at all – I hadn’t seen the previous post as I’ve been off the internet for a while. As far as I knew, she was an actual friend who was asking you to edit her work!

As a character I think she’d be a good read, but as a person (which is how I took your post last week, at face value) I thought she was horrid and you should have kicked her to the curb lol!

So I guess my one “thought” is that if you’re going to have a character act as a real person, make sure your readers know that’s what’s happening and not just assume. Otherwise they can feel like the joke’s on them, rather than being included in the fun side of it.